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The Los Angeles City Planning Commission today took a step towards making Los Angeles a truly bicycle friendly city. In a unanimous vote, the Commission adopted a Bicycle Parking Ordinance that would vastly expand the number of new bike parking spaces required in new developments of all kinds throughout Los Angeles. You can follow the blow-by-blows of the hearing at the twitter feed BikeBlogChris, or the hashtags #bikeLA and #lamtg. You can download a copy of the pdf here.

Over 15 dedicated bicyclists and advocates showed up in City Hall Room 350 today to support the ordinance. Kudos are due to Rye Baerg, the driving force behind the ordinance in the City Planning Department, and all the dedicated members of the public who have helped the ordinance reach where it is today.

Thanks, Rye (image courtesy LACBC)

The next step for the Bicycle Parking Ordinance is a hearing before the PLUM (Planning & Land Use Management) Committee. Once through PLUM, the ordinance goes to a full hearing before the City Council before becoming part of the City’s municipal code. When the ordinance is agendized from the PLUM Committee, we’ll be sure to let you know.

I had the great pleasure last week of getting to speak with Jay Slater, the newly elected Chair of the Los Angeles Bicycle Advisory Committee (BAC). In February, during the BAC’s previous meeting, the BAC held their bi-annual election and voted in Jay as their new Chair.

In the speech he gave prior to the election, Jay emphasized the shortcomings of the BAC in years past and proposed a model of what the BAC needs to become in the future. Below the fold Jay and I discuss what he plans for the BAC, the importance of getting the new adopted LA Bike Plan done right, his campaign to create a BAC liaison program, and his efforts to raise the profile of the BAC and their online visibility.

Wednesday afternoon saw the penultimate stage completed in the years-long journey to get a new bike plan adopted for the City of Los Angeles. In a special joint session, both the PLUM (Planning and Land Use Management) and Transportation Committees met to discuss the draft LA Bike Plan. As the two committees with input on the bike plan, they are the last step before the plan faces the full City Council for adoption into the City’s general plan. The crowd on hand was much smaller than those who turned out for the Bike Plan at the City Planning Commission, but there was still ample representation from the LACBC, Bikeside and the BAC.

The joint committee hearing was held in City Council chambers

While there was a small measure of conflict among speakers and committee members (mostly centered around equestrian/mountain biking conflicts), the plan itself easily sailed through committee. Below the fold, we’ll cover the highlights of the hearing. If you want blow-by-blow coverage, you can always check out the twitter feed of LADOT Bike Blog’s author Christopher Kidd (@BikeBlogChris). You can also check out the twitter hashtag #LABikePlan to see what the collective bike community had to say during the hearing.

There were three items heard before the joint committee. The first was an action item (requiring a vote) and the last two were “receive and file” items (which don’t require a vote).

It’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for. At the Van Nuys Civic Hall Chambers, the City Planning Commission is meeting to discuss the most recent version of the Draft LA Bike Plan. Jump below the fold to follow our live coverage.

Finals, finally, are over. That means LADOT Bike Blog is back to the grind, providing LA’s bicycling public with news and information from the LADOT Bike Program. Look forward to a retrospective of 2010’s bicycle accomplishments, a continuation of the “Anatomy of a Bicycle Friendly Street” series, and coverage of the Draft LA Bike Plan as it wends its way through City commissions, committees, and (eventually) the City Council.

LADOT Bike Blog hopes all our readers will have a safe, cozy, and tasty Thanksgiving. We apologize for the low number posts lately, but we’re smack in the middle of finals right now at USC. We’re committed to coming back with a bigger and better LADOT Bike Blog once things settle down. In the meantime, there are a number of bike-related events in December that you absolutely should not miss.

(Update: The location of the Planning Commission meeting for the Bike Plan has been changed to City Council Chambers in City Hall)

It’s been a long road, hasn’t it? It’s the beginning of the end for a planning process that began back in 2008: The draft 2010 LA Bike Plan comes before the Planning Commission in City Hall Room 1010 this Thursday, November 4th, at 8:30 AM. If passed, the plan will move on to a hearing before the City Council.

If you need a last minute refresher, you can always bone up at labikeplan.org.